By Robbie Corey-Boulet
DAKAR, Aug 21 (Reuters) – Five people who the U.S. attempted to deport to Liberia this week resisted getting off the plane and were instead transported to Equatorial Guinea, another African country to which the Trump administration is removing migrants it cannot legally send home, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.
The incident represents an early snag in Washington’s plan to send up to 1,200 so-called third-country deportees to Liberia, one of the largest such deals it has struck in Africa despite criticism from immigrants’ rights advocates.
Third-country deportees have, in most cases, obtained legal protection against repatriation after U.S. immigration judges ruled they risked torture or other abuses in their home countries.
Liberia announced on Tuesday that it had agreed to receive deportees and that the first group of 20 would arrive on Thursday. But a Liberian official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, told Reuters on Friday that only 15 deportees disembarked.
At least five others – three Cuban men, one Brazilian man and one Cameroonian woman – refused to get off the plane in Liberia, according to three sources familiar with the incident, one of whom was a Honduran deportee on the flight.
Authorities then told them they would be flown to the U.S., but the plane instead headed to Malabo, in Equatorial Guinea, where the five were forced to disembark against their will, two of the sources said.
Liberia’s information ministry did not respond to a request for comment on Friday.
The five deportees are now being held with more than 30 other migrants who the Trump administration had previously sent to Equatorial Guinea under a deal that, like others in Africa, has been denounced by human rights groups and advocates who say many of the deportees are ultimately repatriated.
The State Department on Friday said it remained “unwavering in our commitment to end illegal and mass immigration and bolster America’s border security”.
A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said all the migrants “were deported to a safe third country”, adding, “If a judge finds an illegal alien has no right to be in this country, we are going to remove them. Period”.
40 DEPORTEES HELD IN EQUATORIAL GUINEA, SOURCES SAY
The plane carrying the deportees arrived in Monrovia at 12:45 p.m. (1245 GMT) on Thursday after taking off from Louisiana and stopping in Dakar, Senegal, according to the ICE Flight Monitor managed by Human Rights First.
It then departed for Malabo arriving at 8:50 p.m. (1950 GMT), according to the ICE Flight Monitor.
There are now 40 deportees detained at a decommissioned hotel in Malabo, according to Ahmed Soliman, an Egyptian migrant who arrived there four months ago.
Conditions at the hotel are grim, characterized by “inadequate medical care”, “severe psychological distress” and denial of legal assistance, according to a statement published last month by five rights groups, including Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta and EG Justice.
“The Trump Administration is using these deportation agreements to shuffle people around to different countries like objects,” said Meredyth Yoon, litigation director for Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta.
Equatorial Guinea’s government did not respond to a request for comment on Friday.
(Additional reporting by Jessica Donati and Alphonso Toweh; Editing by Alex Richardson)
Comments